


One Births Two

by remark



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Backstory, Chineseness, Cultural Differences, First Meetings, M/M, Politics, Slow Burn, The Force, Worldbuilding, rocky beginnings, speculation on the Whills, young Baze & Chirrut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 04:34:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10891803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remark/pseuds/remark
Summary: “I am going to be blind before the decade is out,” says Chirrut stiffly, “and one of your novices is responsible. I’m not soliciting charity, I’m demanding reparations.”“Can we ask which novice is at fault? Do they... know what they’ve done?”Chirrut becomes horribly aware of Baze Malbus – big, deliberate, level-voiced Novice Malbus, with his mulish brow and grim slash of a mouth and the set of his chin crumpling with an obscene tenderness that is more uncomfortably vulnerable than anything Chirrut has felt in his life – waiting out in the hallway, out of earshot. “I didn’t get a name,” he says blithely, “and I don’t care to know it. I do ask that knowledge of my condition does not leave this room.”*How they met, and then some.





	One Births Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning notes re: some mild body horror at in the notes at the end. Proceed if you'd rather not be spoiled.

On a dry winter day in NiJedha, while red dust lies undisturbed by wind and the sun shines crystalline bright into the western court of the Temple of the Whills, a Disciple of the Whills is leading a service of pilgrims in prayer when the congregation is burst in on.

The knob-studded double doors from the Temple proper into the courtyard explode open, and a pair of Guardians sweep briskly through, each restraining the arm of a young man and dragging him backwards kicking and cursing down the steps. Their faces are hard as they shove him stumbling down the remainder of the stairs into the courtyard – the congregation swells up and away from him, the fearful oscillation of a flock in flight – and then they retreat from his blazing-eyed, foul-mouthed indignation, pass back into the cool interior of the Temple, and calmly shut the doors behind them.

“You bald tyrants! Toothless, temple pampered bastards! You think you can be rid of me so easily? You haven’t see just _how_ well I can disrespect self-righteous, self-important fools! I’ll sing my disrespect under your perfumed dormitory windows until the wax curdles out of your––”

The geometric thunk of the dense wooden door bar sliding into place rings through the courtyard.

The young man starts and falls silent, as if the sound has activated some animal situational awareness in him. Slowly, he begins to turn to face the congregation undulating uneasily behind him. He arrests this motion. He ducks his head and beats the dusty front of his tunic.

Finally, he unhunches his shoulders and turns fully. His lively, dark eyes are focused and unashamed as he presses his palms together high in front of his face, thumbs touching his brow, and bows to the assembled pilgrims and Disciples. To the onlookers, he wears his respect without embarrassment; he bends like a lacebark pine sapling, limber, noble, clearly upright in his natural state.

“Good afternoon, brothers, sisters… civilians and saints. Uh, may the Force of others be with you.”

“May the Force of others be with you,” the congregation murmurs back, for the most part – not everyone is collected or clement enough to respond. The sea of their faces and hands bobs in waves.

The prayerful voice of a Disciple rises above the crowd. “Do you need escorting from the grounds, brother? It’s easy to be confused by the architecture of the Temple.” The Disciple stands at the head of the congregation on a raised dais, with one red-robed arm still raised to strike a tiered set of bronze bells.

“I. Um––” Still frozen in his inclined position, the young man loses his balance and jerks back involuntarily on one foot. “No.” He straightens. “I’m here for the service.”

“The service?” The Disciple’s hesitation is writ large despite the vocoder mask encompassing her face. She clearly longs to summon the Guardians back to finish the job.

“Seat yourself quickly, then.”

Chirrut spins towards the back of the service, where the speaker is. There,  keeping a watchful eye on the assembled faithful, Novice Baze Malbus leans against a pillar with all the poise and self-assuredness of an idling tank.

Baze’s robes are the gunmetal grey of a novice in training to be a Guardian, and every fold of them is immaculate, cleaner and better pressed than anything Chirrut has ever worn. A monk’s spade is enfolded in Baze’s crossed arms, the crescent end haloing his head. He feels less large to Chirrut in the daylight, but is still somehow taller than Chirrut remembers – perhaps because Chirrut is regarding him from a distance and Baze no longer looms over him, crouching in the the underground dark. The sight of Baze relaxed, ready, and in his element is freshly compelling to Chirrut, who’s mostly only seen him harried and defensive.

He’s not looking at Chirrut, he’s returning the Disciple’s incredulous regard levelly. “All the faithful are welcome to worship at the Temple, aren’t they, Sister?”

“Of… of course,” says the Disciple, and that’s the end of it. She brings her mallet back down on a bell, and the pilgrims around Chirrut shuffle back into their seats on the ground.

Ignoring them, Chirrut waves a jaunty hand up at the dais. “What’s your name, Disciple?”

She continues to strike the bells. “I am Silvanie Phest. You will address me as Disciple, or Disciple Phest.”

“Nice to meet you, Disciple Phest.” Chirrut thumps a fist to his chest. He grins big. “I’m Chirrut Imwe. You remember that! I’ll be sticking around for the foreseeable future.”

“ _Quickly_ , I said,” says Novice Malbus sharply.

Chirrut takes a seat without further fuss. Silvanie Phest’s beautiful, modulated voice rises once more to lead the congregation in the call-and-answer recitation of verse.

 

_The moment between breaths_

THE MOMENT BETWEEN BREATHS

_Is the balance of the Force._

IS THE BALANCE OF THE FORCE.

_Between life and death._

BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH.

_Rest and action._

REST AND ACTION.

_Serenity and passion._

SERENITY AND PASSION.

_Hope and despair._

HOPE AND DESPAIR.

 

Chirrut listens along politely, his mouth closed and eyelids half shut. The purposeful ringing of the bells lulls him into a drifting state.

The service follows a pattern of commentary readings, scriptural readings, and interpretive sermons interspersed with the chanting of song and verse. Each section is marked with the distinct ringing of the bells, the wafting of wands with bundles of smoking incense dangling from their ends, the passing of murmuring Disciples through the crowd, blessing all the pilgrims they touch with the clarity of the Force. Chirrut is, to his own estimation, very well behaved throughout all of it. The deliberate, patient rhythm of the service makes it easy to be; it seems to align with the pulse of something fuller, bigger, greater in Chirrut and all around him.

The world falls away; the universe expands incalculably.

For an uncertain amount of time he feels weightless and vast, and he can almost perceive––

A last, deep _gong_ shakes the ground and indicates the end of the service. All around the Temple, the Force-faithful stir from their seats. Chirrut wakes to the present.

The Disciples at the edge of the assembly converge on the pilgrims and begin to usher them out, but Chirrut artfully slips away from each one that draws near. From the corner of his eye, he spies the snapping hem of Baze’s robe disappearing through a moon door.

Chirrut dodges through the tide of bodies and sweet smoke after him.

Chirrut notes, idly, that the sun suits Baze Malbus greatly. It gives Chirrut a much more comprehensive survey of him; the light reveals Baze to be brown like tea, clean-shaven on his cheeks and the sides of his head, wavy haired even without the warping texture of grime. The overall impression Chirrut gets is that of a healthy, stolid young man with the austere bearing of someone older. His robe is lighter wear than the spelunking gear he wore in the catacombs, and the expansive shifting of his back under the cloth is evident as he walks.

“Baze!” calls Chirrut, closing the last of the distance between them with a sprint. Baze’s stride doesn’t break, but he allows Chirrut to draw level.

“Chirrut Imwe,” acknowledges Baze. “Did you enjoy the service?”

“Good to see you, Chirrut. I’m so relieved that you’re alive and well, Chirrut. Could you thank your mother for not hunting me down and flaying me alive for bringing her son back to her half-dead, Chirrut.”

Baze’s step falters. “I just––”

“It was positively invigorating. Where are you off to?”

Baze chews his lip and, to Chirrut’s surprise and satisfaction, spares a genuinely considering look for Chirrut. His brow is perpetually knit in exactly the way Chirrut remembers. Finally, he points to a line of speeders parked against the far wall of the courtyard, the kind Chirrut has seen novices driving loaded with supplies into the city for distribution. “Vehicle maintenance, to finish off my rotation. I’m hoping to figure out what’s wrong with the lift repulsor stabilizers on a few of them before dusk prayer.”

“Really? That’s your job?”

“Everyone is responsible for a bit of every kind of work that goes into maintaining the Temple, to the extent that they can. And this is something I can do.” They come to a halt together before the half-dozen speeders, and Baze starts the engine of the first of them. He tucks his spade into his belt, unslings a pouch of tools from his waist, pulls up and secures the skirt of his robe with a tie, and kneels before a repulsor unit. Chirrut folds his hands together and resists the urge to crowd him. He’s nosy, he can’t help wanting to peer over shoulders and pry into going-ons.

“I really am––” starts Baze again as he pries open the hatch. He looks over his shoulder back at Chirrut, flicks his eyes assessingly up and down. It makes Chirrut feel a little bare, and he juts his chin out defiantly.

“Thank the Force for your recovery,” says Baze quietly. “The thought of your suffering has been consummately wretched to me. I prayed for you.”

Chirrut’s throat tightens with discomfort. _Consummately wretched_. He doesn’t even have the decency to sound insincere. “It’s not been a month,” he says irritably. “I wasn’t sick for even half of it. How long do you think a fever lasts exactly?”

“That’s good.” Baze returns to his handiwork. His teeth and gums are bared as he gnaws on the screws he holds in his mouth.

“And if you were so worried, you could have visited.”

“I refrained, out of respect to your mother. She didn’t seem amenable to my presence.”

“Really! Did she attempt murder? I understand, but I don’t know if I could forgive her for that. I was bored witless in my sickbed and some company could’ve saved me a few brain cells.”

“I think she tried to kill me the _first_ time I turned up with you. I didn’t like my chances.”

“Cowardly.”

“Sensible. Sorry about the brain cells, I’m sure you hadn’t many to spare.”

Baze flinches with what Chirrut would almost categorize as alarm when Chirrut’s whole upper body recoils like a blaster as he barks out a delighted laugh. Chirrut slaps a palm to his chest. “Zing! Worldly cruelty from the mouths of monks! Where’s your piety gone, Novice?”

“I prayed for you,” says Baze wearily. “What did you do that got you thrown from the Temple?”

“Oh!” says Chirrut cheerfully. “I was hoping you might have not noticed. It was kind of a blink-and-you-miss-it affair, really.”

Baze snorts.

“But if you must know, I was trying to get an audience with one of the Master Guardians.”

“That can’t be all,” says Baze flatly. He jams a screwdriver forcefully into the unit’s innards, apparently trying to jimmy something loose. “I can’t imagine full fledged Guardians turning you away with such a show of force unless you made it necessary – and of course you were turned away, I don’t know what you thought would happen.”

“I _very_ badly wanted an audience with a Master, and I was willing to raise some noise for it. Master Selna Aon, in particular. Do you know her?”

“The Masters don’t deal with the personal inquiries of every civilian who wants their time, anything you need done can be handled by a regular Guardian or Disciple. In any case, Master Aon is on an infirmary rotation today.”

“Tcht, even the woman responsible for the Guardian novitiate track gets busywork? Or is tending to the sick and maimed just something she _can_ do.”

Baze tears out a hunk of repulsor drive the size of a human skull with one broad, blunt-fingered hand. “Have the sense,” he says flatly, “to not condescend the Temple while you _stand on_ the holy ground of the Temple.”

“Oh, who will strike me down?” says Chirrut, then stops himself. His second encounter with Baze Malbus, and he’s already getting ahead of himself. A different tack, then. He plays at nonchalance, like he’s never wanted anything badly in his life. “Maybe I’m just curious about the view from the temple spire. I’ve never seen the city before.”

“You can see the city any time. Just walk outside.”

“No, I can’t. Everything in NiJedha is too close up to see. You can lose the view of a small township by threading it down a single alleyway in the holy city. You can pass as many as a thousand faces you’ll never see again in the time it takes you to purchase a kebab. The closest you can get to beholding every part of the city is staring into the depths of a refuse collection cart. It bothers the shit out of me.”  It bothers Chirrut because ever since he’s recovered, the ebb and flow of life grabs his attention in ways that it never has before, it bothers him because just walking about makes him feel like someone’s grabbed a fistful of the neural connections between all his senses and is jerking them about: ‘Pay attention! Pay attention to this! And this! And notice this!’ He wants to become familiar with NiJedha, but that won’t be possible if this keeps up.

He doesn’t say this.

Baze hasn’t stopped what he’s doing in the repulsor unit, but Chirrut has inadvertently drawn one of his ears upwards towards him. “It’s strange, I can’t decide whether you sound like some baffled provincial poet whose never had to lock his speeder up before or a hardened urban delinquent. Either way, your expectations are too high. It's arrogance to expect you can learn and know everything.”

This makes Chirrut shrug, like the odds are his least concern. “Of course I can. Will you help me, Baze Malbus?”

“All for the sake of a view?” says Baze drily.

“Aw, come on. You don’t seem like a stupid boy to me, Novice."

Tossing down his spanner like he’s flicking away a headache, Baze pushes off his haunches and stands up straight. He glowers over Chirrut. “Careful who you call _boy_ , Chirrut Imwe,” he growls downward. Chirrut isn’t particularly intimidated, but he is impressed. _Striking_ , he thinks absently of the light refracting off the speeder onto the side of Baze’s venomously still expression. “Who did I just save from public shame by not letting him be dragged from the Temple by the ear like an errant child after cursing out two Guardians and Force knows who else?"

“Oh shit, are you older than me? By how much? I’m eighteen.”

"I’ve already done you a favor. If the Master didn’t see fit to grant you an audience, I’m certainly not going to help you get one, not even if I could. You’re all better now. I don’t owe you anything.”

It’s when Baze turns away that Chirrut acts. He darts toward and lightly, lightly plucks loose the tie keeping the novice’s outer skirt up. In the beat it takes for Baze to realize what has transpired, Chirrut has dodged to the side; in the second it takes for Baze to whirl around, curse, and lurch down to tug fistfuls of skirt back over his trousers, Chirrut has ducked under his arm and retrieved a piece of duraresin piping from Baze’s toolbag.

Chirrut darts to the back of the idling speeder and jams the duraresin pipe into its exhaust stack.

“Wh–– what are you–– that’s a Temple asset, you’ll damage it!” Baze steps towards him, one hand fisted in his skirt and one hand outstretched to seize Chirrut.

“Don’t touch me,” Chirrut snarls, his hand curled around the pipe. All the irreverence has evaporated from him. “Don’t _fucking_ touch me, and don’t grab me. You can try it, but I’ll make you regret it.”

Chirrut leans down, wraps his lips around the pipe, and starts to inhale.

He is allowed to do this for what seems like forever. He inhales the hot exhaust in huge, rapid gulps, to ingest as much as he can. He does, at one point, have to pull off to take a single deep breath that staves off his body’s need to cough, then resumes with vigor. He is starting to feel the pain of burning on his tongue, gums, soft palate. Tears stream freely down his hot red cheeks.

It might be ten seconds or ten minutes later that Chirrut chances a glance at Baze. The novice is frozen to the spot, his whole face slack and bug-eyed like he can’t cerebrally grasp what is happening but his animal instincts are pumping him full of horror. There’s a spasm of his jaw that briefly indicates, to Chirrut’s great amusement, helpless embarrassment and scandal, and then––

“ _Are you crazy?_ ” roars Baze as his spirit finally returns to his body and he springs forward. He hauls Chirrut backwards, his arms barred across Chirrut’s upper torso. Chirrut lets himself stumble back into Baze.

Chirrut opens his mouth to reply but only manages to double over coughing. Baze is still determinedly holding onto him and bends with him.

“You backwater maniac!” Baze practically screams into Chirrut’s ear. It’s annoying, and Chirrut would say as much if he weren’t helplessly heaving against Baze’s chest and the circle of his arms as he coughs his guts out. “What were you–– _Force_! You’re a fool of more hopeless magnitudes than I took you for! Do you want carbon monoxide poisoning!?”

“Oh no,” wheezes Chirrut, “I’ve sustained carbon monoxide poisoning from Temple assets. I suppose you’d better take me to the infirmary.”

Baze’s grip doesn’t lessen – if anything, it becomes deadlier – but he goes totally still again.

Chirrut pats the forearm across his chest. “Come on, you don’t want me to die on you now after all we’ve been through, do you? From inhaling toxic gases  _or_ , ah, suffocation.”

Baze drops him to the ground. Chirrut takes this in stride, rolls over and leans back on his elbows to grin lazily up at Baze from between the trunks of his legs. Smiling hurts his poor, blistered gums very badly, but it must be an astoundingly gruesome sight. Baze's face is screwed up in the naked way little kids' faces are when they're trying not to cry, only Chirrut is very sure that's not tears that Baze Malbus is on the verge of.

“I’m not joking. I feel very badly off. You could have a real medical emergency on your hands if you don’t––”

Baze grabs the front of Chirrut’s tunic and wrenches him to his feet. He sets Chirrut down swaying in place, turns off the speeder’s engine, and snatches up his toolbag. He stomps back to Chirrut and grabs the side of his head, roughly turning Chirrut’s face back and forth to wipe the dust and tear tracks off his cheeks with the sleeve of his spotless novice robe; his touch makes Chirrut hyperaware of how warm his face is. Then he turns away.

“Follow me. _Don’t_ talk.”

A little shakily, Chirrut smooths down the abused front of his tunic and wobbles after him. He can’t help but smile from ear to ear as he catches up to Baze, whose step is still steady and dignified – the only clue that anything has just happened is perhaps his speed, which indicates that he would like to put some physical distance between himself and the recent past.

Chirrut observes Baze’s stony profile. “Wow, I really made you angry, huh.”

“I am not angry.”

“I did!” says Chirrut gleefully. “Your face is redder than a warlord’s!”

Baze increases the length and urgency of his strides. He doesn’t offer to support Chirrut’s weight, and he doesn’t stop to let him catch his breath.

 

*

 

In the infirmary, Chirrut lifts his oxygen mask briefly to courteously inquire after the whereabouts of Master Aon while Novice Malbus glowers by the side of his cot. The Master herself comes to him with a healer’s shift over her robes and places in his hands a solution of burn relief salve and saline water.

“That should help with the burns,” she says with patience – not a patience that is extended to Chirrut personally, but one that the Master must surround herself with at all times so that it drapes over passerby like a clean sheet fluttering on a line, throwing about light and shadow. A starbird pendant dangles from a ribbon wound around one of her lekku. Chirrut’s never met anyone quite like this Master and resists the urge to stare.

“My utmost thanks,” says Chirrut with complete humility. He pushes the mask to the side and drinks, swirls the solution around in his mouth gingerly, and spits delicately into a basin, considerately shielding the action from the Master’s sight with his sleeve. The resentment radiating off Baze Malbus increases.

“Keep the solution, use it until your mouth has healed and then rinse regularly with salt water for a week or so just in case. This is a very strange injury you’ve sustained. How did this happen?”

“Well, everyone gets something stuck up the wrong pipe sometimes. Maybe not you, Master, but to a fool such as me, such a mishap of my own physiology is commonplace. Master Aon,” says Chirrut, setting aside the solution and touching his pressed-together hands to his forehead, “if you would hear me, I have important information to relay to you. And a request.”

“You may speak freely.”

“I would speak to you in private. It concerns the conduct of one of your Guardian-track novices.”

Baze Malbus tenses next to Master Aon, but if she notices then she makes no indication that she has.

“Brother Luo, Novice Tenma,” she says while maintaining eye contact with Chirrut, “draw the curtains around this station attend to other patients, please. Novice Malbus, wait outside the infirmary.”

Chirrut expects Baze to protest, but he collects himself and exits without so much as a backward glance. The other two infirmary attendants share a look and close the curtains around the Master and Chirrut.

They are alone.

“What’s your name, boy?”

“Chirrut Imwe. Yes, _that_ Imwe. Don't banish me from the grounds just yet. I’m here to ask––” Chirrut takes a last breath through his oxygen mask, then removes it. Master Aon’s eyes track him as he sets it aside. “–– no. I’m here to _demand_ that the Temple of the Whills take me on as a student of zama-shiwo.”

“Young Imwe, zama-shiwo is taught all over Jedha. The Temple, too, provides lessons in the martial arts. This is no object of contention, you are free to partake of them no matter who your family is. The Temple's history with the Imwes is decades past - we are content to leave old quarrels where they belong.”

“You misunderstand me. I want to train to the highest mastery available. I want to learn what you only teach the Guardians of the Whills.”

Master Aon’s regard is unblinking. “And why should we comply?"

“Because the arts of the inward eye of the outward hand can benefit me uniquely. Soon, I will be a blind man, and one of your novices is at fault.”

He tells the story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWs: There's a description of injury sustained inside the mouth. Skip the next two paragraphs after Chirrut says "Don't touch me" if you don't wanna see that.
> 
> I'd love to finish telling the whole story as I have it planned - it's a series - but I'm not really a writer and Greg Rucka jacked a storyline I wanted to pursue later in the course of the narrative, so this might just be a one and done thing. If that's what this ends up being, I'll change the chapter count to reflect that when I post the next installment and I'll end the story there, even though there'll be loose ends. We'll see.


End file.
